The 2025 Innovative Applications in Analytics Award, brought to you by the Analytics Society of INFORMS, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and Adelphi University is in the books. This year's competition included a record number of submissions and fielded six very strong finalists who competed during the 2025 Analytics+ Conference in Indianapolis.
On behalf of the more than 1,800 members of the Analytics Society, I want to thank the sponsors, judges, coaches, and INFORMS staff who made this year's competition possible.
· Our industry sponsor, BCG and our academic sponsor, Adelphi University, provided advice, judges, and funding that allowed us to offer one paid conference registration per finalist team.
· Our judging committee was led by long-time co-chairs Juan Jaramillo of Long Island University (who is also president elect of the society) and Pallav Chhaochhria of Ingenuity Trading. The judging panel included the following individuals:
o Mike Beyer, BCG
o Ece Ceren Izgi, CogniVerge AI
o Rodrigo Estrada, Organización Corona
o Nitish Ghosal, Discover Financial Services
o Catalina Jaramillo, New York University
o Duncan Klett, Kinaxis
o Zahra Sedighi-Maman, Adelphi University
o Nick Ulmer, CANA LLC
o Yan Xu, SAS
· Our judging team was led by long-time coordinator Devang Dave of Ford Motor Company. The competition coaches included the following individuals:
o Girish Bakshi, Apple
o Haorong Li, Ledger Run Inc.
o Leonidas Guadalupe, Children's Health
o Margarit Khachatryan, MagAnalytics
o Behnam Tavakkol, Stockton University
o Alice Zhang, Ford Motor Company
INFORMS staff members, notably Beth West, handled logistics and scheduling for the final round. She also organized a wonderful IAAA award luncheon to recognize the finalist and winning teams.
The 2025 IAAA competition showcased exceptional, innovative applications of analytics and recognized the organizations that implemented these applications. Executing the 2025 IAAA competition required the extensive commitment of a diverse group of organizations and individuals. Recognizing the cast that worked behind the scenes to make this year's competition a success is my distinct pleasure.
Dan Hudson
President, Analytics Society of INFORMS